


When they have been exhumed

by nothingislittle



Series: Bad Blood [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Attempted Rape, BAMF Mary, Blood and Injury, Blood and Torture, Doesn't [work beautifully] right away, Episode Fix-It: s03e03 His Last Vow, Fix-It, Graphic Description, His Last Vow Spoilers, Jealous Sherlock, M/M, Murder, Obsessed Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Post-His Last Vow, Sequel, Series 3, Sorry guys, Torture, Violence, agra, eventually, mary morstan backstory, series 3 spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-18 13:40:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2350427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingislittle/pseuds/nothingislittle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They barely talk because they’re horrible at important things and because only important things come to mind and because they’ve silently agreed that sort of talk will be postponed. Until ‘after.’ After the plan, after she’s dealt with, after John returns for good. Sherlock thinks of it as a mythical place they’ll likely never reach. But he doesn’t know what to do differently so he pouts and plots and plans ways to get there and spends as much time inside John as possible."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. laid out one by one

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct sequel to If you close your eyes (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1173537) and I highly recommend reading that first because this won't make much sense otherwise. The story will closely follow HLV from just before Christmas to the end of the episode and go on from there. In that sense it's kind of a 'missing scenes' fic, as If you close your eyes was, but eventually it will continue the story after the plane turns around at the end of s3. Also, fair warning, it will be terribly, terribly sad.

“You can’t stay, you know.”

Faintly blue smoke, formerly in Sherlock’s mouth, swirling above their heads resting on pillows.

“Put it out.”

“I certainly hope you don’t think I’m going to start listening to you now.” Sherlock drawls and puffs and puts the cigarette out.

“I’m not going back.”

Sherlock turns on his side, toward the middle of the bed where John lays on his stomach, props himself up by the elbow, head on hand. No blankets — they kicked them to the floor. He admires the line of John’s back, short, stocky, strong, and the curve of his arse.

“You have to.”

One eye opens, a sleep muddled scowl.

“No I don’t. I can’t. I wouldn’t even know what to say.”

“Lie, of course.”

A sharp huff of derisive laughter. “When have you ever seen me lie well?”

Sherlock looks up at the still lingering smoke, squinting. He hears it, _Got herself on a witness protection scheme, apparently. Dunno how she swung it, but, er, well, you know ..._ and smiles.

“Never.”

“Stop. You’re thinking about Irene.”

“No, I’m thinking about you lying about Irene — unconvincingly, as you said.”

“And as I said: stop.”

Sherlock heaves a great world-on-the-shoulders sigh, and lands again on his back. “I’d never have told you she was still alive if I’d known you’d be so boorishly jealous.”

“S’a perfectly normal reaction, not that you’d know.”

Sherlock grits his teeth as hard as he can as John pushes up on his arms to look at his face.

“Oh, Sherlock, I’m … I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, really I’m sorry—”

He’s angry.

“If you think I don’t absolutely hate the idea of sending you back to her, you’re dumber now than you ever were.”

“Alright, git, I’ve said I’m sorry. God, this is a mess.”

John’s sad face deflates him. The man’s been sad enough for ten lifetimes. He should be done. Of course, he’s not. Of course.

“Yes, it is, and I have a plan to get us out of it, as you’ll recall, which brings me back to my original point: you can’t stay.”

John groans. “I’ll never convince her. What am I supposed to say?”

“You could always start with something like … ‘these are prepared words …’”

\--

They work out the details in just under 30 minutes. It’s a week until Christmas when the whole thing will lead off and it’s decided that John can stay until then. Sherlock insists John practice his speech again and again but after the fourth time he puts his mouth to better use.  
They pant each other’s names — they never say hers.

\--

Tea and toast at the kitchen table and it’s frightfully normal. John spends most of the hours at 221b pretending no time has passed. Much less unsettling.

Sherlock spends most of the time looking at John when John isn’t looking at him.

It occurs to John the next afternoon. They’re draped over furniture in the sitting room, doing nothing, alternately silent and bickering about the potential contents of an early dinner.

“... did Mycroft know?”

“The thought had occurred.”

A beat. They look at each other, wary.

“And?”

“I’m seeing him later this week and I assure you he will be very forthcoming.”

“He wouldn’t have … not .... said anything?”

John knows that the tight lipped smile isn’t actually a smile.

“I’d like to say ‘no’ out of hand, but …”

“Mmm.” _Surely not_ , John thinks. Then he thinks about other possibilities that frighten him so much he pretends he never thought them at all. He’s good at that.

\--

The snow is falling and she’s getting rounder.

It’s an impossible week.

John has to see her every day at the clinic and he can’t bring himself to say more than “Hello,” and, “Thank you,” when she announces his patients. Partially because he’s intensely angry, partially because when he looks in her eyes and hears her voice, it pulls at his heart. He knows it’s not real, it never was, and even when the thought it was he knew then he was accepting pale imitation of what his life could be and yet — it pulls. The simplicity of _before_ , the innocuous version of her that was like a pillowed fall. Nothing more than nice, but it was at least that.

He can’t speak to her because it’s fearful, like not trusting yourself on top of a building, at the edge of a cliff. _What if I can’t stop myself moving off the edge?_ In this case the edge is sharp as a knife and certainly deadly if he were to jump wrong. Better to keep quiet. But, it pulls. Her lying face, pulls at anger, resentment, fear and nostalgia. It’s impossible.

At the end of the second day, John leaves his office with papers occupying his hands and eyes. He leans in and puckers for a goodbye kiss at her desk. She stares as he slowly comes back to himself, mutters something, drops the papers hastily into her hands.

He heads straight to the flat and presses a pajama clad Sherlock into the couch, kissing him until they’re dizzy, grinding against Sherlock until he comes over John’s thigh.

Sherlock knows why. Is there anything Sherlock doesn't know? _Things that matter_ , John thinks, bitterly, sitting back on his heels, breathing hard, and Sherlock knows that too. Touches John’s wet lips.

“Do you want—”

“No.”

He nods. John presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. Even something this small is hard to say, it’s pathetic, he thinks, how he can barely get it out.

“I’m so bloody _angry_.”

“I know.”

John looks up, disgusted. _Not helpful, Sherlock_. He doesn’t even have to chide him aloud, Sherlock already looks sheepish.

“Sorry …”

The room smells like semen and sweat an even above all that, her perfume.

Impossible.

Sherlock is out of his depth and will be treading water there for years to come but for John … John can see it, for him Sherlock always tries. He kisses him gently on the mouth.

“Take-away’s due in 15 minutes. You can have the shower first.”

In other houses, this would not be a big moment, would not be a great concession, but in 221b … it pulls at John. Harder. Better. This is better.

\--

They smoke an inordinate amount.

When John lights his first that night it goes unspoken because even showers and air freshener doesn’t scrub the place clean of her. Sherlock doesn’t know if it really is there or just a memory of the scent but he does know John prefers the smell of smoke because it reminds him of Sherlock and no protests are made.

It’s only six days but they drag. Sherlock tries not to seethe when John’s at the surgery and he fails. He’s not a mature man, which he knows, and he succumbs quickly to pouting during the shifts. He tries not to let John see, but the flat is a mess and there are body parts in the icebox and the same pajamas again and again and it’s obvious.

They barely talk because they’re horrible at important things and because only important things come to mind and because they’ve silently agreed that sort of talk will be postponed. Until ‘after.’ After the plan, after she’s dealt with, after John returns for good. Sherlock thinks of it as a mythical place they’ll likely never reach. But he doesn’t know what to do differently so he pouts and plots and plans ways to get there and spends as much time inside John as possible.

Fingers, tongue, cock — any way he can tangibly be a part of him, or vice versa, seems like the only truly worthy pursuit. It’s the only time the fear between them fades, the apprehension, the uncertainty, the walls built out of years apart, it all disappears then and Sherlock can say anything. Does.

“I’ve never seen anything like you,” whispered in the dark, at the kitchen table, where John is bent and Sherlock’s has three fingers buried in him to the second knuckle. Sherlock keeps his eyes on John’s contorted face, his teeth gnawing the bottom lip. It looks like pain but it’s not. Incongruous, exquisite. Art.

“I love you. I do. I love you, John.” Sherlock words ghost over John’s eyelids as he kisses them softly. “I could sculpt you, like this. Keep you forever. You’re beautiful.”

“ _Sherlock_.”

“Shhh, let me have it, let me see you,”

John is moaning, keenly softly and it’s fascinating to Sherlock. There are a thousand, million things that John Watson does he hasn’t seen yet, hasn’t had the opportunity to and he wants them all. Reaction to sexual stimulation and other bedroom related habits are only one small category but all that does seem very pressing lately, to them both, so Sherlock tries to memorize it. Frees up space to store the data. Who needs every single note of a symphony when the full range of octaves John can express during a blow job needs storing.

Or the way he twists and turns his hips to push against Sherlock’s hand, grinding against the tabletop for relief. Sherlock is a fast learner. He’s had more sex since John got engaged to someone else than the rest of his life combined but he’s nothing if not an excellent mimic. He spends hours repeating John’s moves back on him, improved and expanded, like now, the way his fingers are moving is something John had employed on Sherlock just this past morning. But with Sherlock’s much longer fingers the effect is seems to be wholly different to John. He’s past noise, now, opened mouth and rutting, eyes blinking open to focus on Sherlock’s.

Honesty. That’s what is on John’s face just before he comes, Sherlock realizes. It breaks something free inside of him, to see that in John. Maybe hope.

He keeps him there long enough to be cruel, long enough to remember it, memorize every angle in case it shows up at another time and Sherlock can recognize it. John has tears at the corner of his eyes when Sherlock finally lets him come in his hand and on the table. He cries a little while Sherlock kisses up and down his spine.

Maybe they’ll be alright. Maybe they’ll make it to ‘after.’

\--

“Did you know?”

“Well, that’s rather pointed.”

“Answer the question.”

“Sherlock, what could I possibly have to gain by keeping that sort of information to myself?” A tight smile. “I always have your best interests at heart, brother dear. Believe it … or not.” Mycroft is picking off imaginary dust from his suit, a habit Sherlock has always loathed beyond expression.

"As you say ... but did you have John's best interests in the same place?"

"Ah, in the end doesn't that come down to the same thing?"

Sherlock steps in very close and leans in to Mycroft's smug face.

"If I ever find out you could have prevented this, if you could have kept John from her ... I will find a way to ruin you."

Mycroft's wry amusement barely covers concern. Sherlock finds it disturbing to see any real emotion in his eyes so he turns away and collapses on the couch, picking up an old magazine.

"My my, Sherlock. It almost sounds as if you're involved."

"I'm not involved, Mycroft. I'm in love."

\--

They sleep together. They don’t sleep, really. But they do it together.

Sherlock always shuts out the light before he gets undressed and John thinks back over their inchoate sexual relationship.

“Sherlock?”

John sleeps on top of the covers, always, and Sherlock slips under the sheets his body is weighing down.

“Hmm?”

“Why is it that every time we have sex it’s either in the dark or you stay half dressed?”

Sherlock is silent just a hair of a second too long, which is really telling because if John can catch something amiss, it must be big.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

John sits up.

“Oh my god. Yes you do. It’s intentional, isn’t it? What is it, tell me why?”

John can barely make out Sherlock’s face, the room is so dark, but what he can see is oh so carefully arranged features that are meant to convey haughtiness and bored but what John is finding lately is that Sherlock is a much worse liar when his heart is involved. Or perhaps John was the one lying to himself the entire time when he ignored the clues Sherlock let creep into his face. There’s so much between them, miles and miles and piles of lies and things they still haven’t said, even now, and John hates it. He wants to kill it, the distance, set it on fire and watch the world burn while Sherlock lays in his arms, and he’s going to start with this.

“Tell me.”

Sherlock sighs, in that way he has, and goes to turn over.

“I’m terribly insecure about my looks, John, isn’t it obvious.” It’s not a question and John pulls at the blankets to stop Sherlock turning away.

“I would laugh if I weren’t so bloody cross with you. What’s going on, Sherlock?”

“Are you honestly telling me you haven’t noticed?”

“ … noticed?”

“My God, I never thought I would fall in love with an idiot.”

“Noticed what, Sherlock?”

The sigh, again. It makes John’s blood boil with suppressed rage when Sherlock acts so superior, when he deigns to explain things to the lesser mortals, but it also makes his cock twitch and surge with the same boiling blood because there isn’t one maddening thing he feels about Sherlock that doesn’t make John love and want him more and more and more. Sherlock, naked, pulls his covers away and sits up, twisting his back to John to turn on his bedside lamp. With a click, there is soft, yellow light and John waits, but Sherlock stays turned and John is opening his mouth to press Sherlock for an answer.

“I had assumed you felt them and simply didn’t say anything.” He rolls his spine forward, a bit, and John realizes he means to be showing John his back, which, as he thinks quickly, is actually the one part of Sherlock he hasn’t seen bared since he came back from the dead.

It’s still dark in their room, the lamp is weak, but John squints and the constellation of scars that cover Sherlock’s back is illuminated to John’s eyes and his entire abdominal cavity is flooded with brackish anxiety.

“How did I not … notice this. I’m a bloody doctor.”

“You’re a doctor with a remarkable ability to compartmentalize and shut out information you can’t handle.”

“But I’ve touched your back, I’ve felt it, I should have—”

“There are a lot of them, true, but most of the scars aren’t very raised and I daresay on the few occasions your hands have been on my bare back you’ve been rather distracted.”

He’s trying to make it a joke, trying to laugh it all off, he’s trying but there isn’t any humor in his voice or in his sagging shoulders.

“Who did this?”

“Many people. On different occasions.”

“Is it from …?” _When you were dead_ , John thinks and he can’t say it, he still can’t.

“While I was away, yes. It wasn’t all … ‘hide and seek,’ as you put it.”

John feels sick, he’s going to be sick. He had no idea, no clue, hadn’t put a thought to what Sherlock was doing while he was away. He had imagined him holed up in a hotel suite in Prague, solving cases for the locals over the phone, weekly visits from Mycroft bringing him chips and cakes and reports of London. _Obviously not_ , John thinks and his mouth tastes bitter and bile and he’s going to be sick. Why hadn’t he asked? Why had he never asked?

“What were you … Sherlock, what happened while you were away?”

“It’s not important.”

“It’s not … ? Jesus, Sherlock.” Just when John reaches forward to touch the marred, pink and white flesh, Sherlock lays back on the bed and closes his eyes. John can’t say anything else, and somewhere in a distant part of his brain he rages, wants to find the person or people who marked Sherlock like this and tear them to pieces with his hands and teeth but the prevailing feeling is shame. He hadn’t asked, Sherlock hadn’t told him. Why does it have to be like this?

“Why didn’t you say?”

“When do we ever say?”

After this, John makes Sherlock turn on his front so he can trace every scar with the tips of his fingers and tongue and tells himself it will be different, it will be different between them now. It will.


	2. these little things define you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Killing her family had simply become the next logical step to life the way she wanted it. It’s probably the most dispassionate thing she’s ever done, the only emotion involved being … well, she guesses it would be classified as selfishness by an outside observer, but she doesn’t really see herself as more or less selfish than the average person. Doesn’t everyone, on some level, arrange things as they want? Choosing what degree to pursue, who to marry, how many children to have, where to live, etc., etc. So it’s taking something a little more extreme to get what she wants, to achieve optimal happiness. That’s fine. Logical. Normal, even. She shrugs. Normal to her anyway. What else matters?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Graphic depictions of violence and attempted assault/rape in this chapter.
> 
> Please, please heed the warnings and the tags.

**TWENTY YEARS EARLIER**

Slitting someone’s throat is nothing like you’d expect.

In films, they put a knife against the victim’s neck, swipe it quickly across and then the person is bleeding out, no problem. The killer with barely any blood on them. It's simply not realistic.

First of all, blood gets _everywhere_. If you cut someone's jugular — properly, mind you — the amount of blood is unimaginable. Which is probably why movies get it wrong. How many screenwriters have actually done the research? Probably very few. The real thing looks as if you poured three gallon jugs of the stuff over yourself, the victim, the floor. Especially if you kill more than one person.

The other thing is you really have to _press_. If you don’t hit any major arteries, then it’s nothing worse than a paper cut in an inconvenient place — as long as they make it to the hospital in time. You’ve got to press hard enough and in just the right place, or they will likely live. And that won’t do.

Avdotia Avilova finally gets it right on her step-father’s throat.

It’s a quiet Saturday morning in Belarus. Freezing, as usual, always freezing. Avdotia is awake and washing blood off of her hands. It seems her clothes are a total loss, which is unfortunate. She looks great in this sundress. She blames the lack of accurately depicted throat slashings in the media. Really. It’s irresponsible. Had she known, she’d have murdered her family in the nude.

The shower is freezing. Everything here is freezing. Avdotia dreams of Miami, of Cancun, of Jerusalem. She dreams of humidity, of thick, oppressive, enveloping heat, miles of cracked earth and dried grass and sweat. What a luxury it would be to sweat. She’s not even sure she can.

Yes, it’s time to leave Belarus, which is why her mother, step-father, and step-brother are all exsanguinating on the floor of their living room. She supposes she could have left them alive, robbed them in their sleep and absconded without a trace. But, she’s certain, they would have looked for her. Unfortunate. But unavoidable.

The way her mother loved her was truly insufferable. _Cloying_ , clinging. She wanted to hug, to kiss, to touch her, always touching her. Cold, clammy hands sliding up her arms, patting her head, constantly pawing at her from birth. Avdotia didn’t want any hands on her but her own.

They didn’t have a lot of money, but, for Belarus, it was enough. Enough to hire a PI, so that was it. She’d had to kill her, and she certainly couldn’t leave her step-father and -brother alive to find the body. They both loved too; not her so much as her mother, but still. The sweetness of it all was so sickening. The warmth. Everyone acted like if they loved each other enough they could warm this freezing house from their insides out, but it just doesn’t work that way. It’s fake, it’s false, it’s disgusting.

True, Avdotia wanted heat, but on the outside. Around her, not within her. The inside of Avdotia is frozen and will remain that way, as she prefers it. She will not tolerate any attempts to thaw her at the core.

Feeble gurgling sounds from down the hall while Avdotia towels herself dry, rolling her eyes. She hadn’t cut her step-brother nearly deep enough and he was taking forever to die. She dresses warmly — an army green coat with red tartan lining, two scarves, black fingerless gloves, steel lined boots — and begins packing. The sun is just beginning to creep in under the hideous, thick, beige, vinyl blinds her mother loves — well, loved, she thinks, dispassionately. It’s odd. When you hear about someone snapping and murdering their entire family it sounds so crazed, so frenetic. A crime of _passion_ they call it. Passion. Intensity. Feeling.

Nothing is ever like the movies.

Killing her family had simply become the next logical step to life the way she wanted it. It’s probably the most dispassionate thing she’s ever done, the only emotion involved being … well, she guesses it would be classified as selfishness by an outside observer, but Avdotia doesn’t really see herself as more or less selfish than the average person. Doesn’t everyone, on some level, arrange things as they want? Choosing what degree to pursue, who to marry, how many children to have, where to live, etc., etc. So it’s taking something a little more extreme to get what she wants, to achieve optimal happiness. That’s fine. Logical. Normal, even. She shrugs. Normal to her anyway. What else matters?

In the living room she steps carefully over pooled blood to retrieve her mother’s hand bag and her step-father’s wallet. Sufficient funds for a few weeks, if she includes the credit cards. Supposedly there are mercenary opportunities in the Congo, according to a few of the second rate criminals she knows. That might be an interesting place to start. Warm, yes. But how to convince grown men she could kill when and where she pleased? She shrugs again: _Kill one of them, I suppose_. Maybe whoever’s in charge. That would take everyone down a peg, get her some respect.

She smiles at the thought, stuffing the cash into the duffle slung crossways over her abdomen  when a more insistent round of gurgling noises echo through the room. Her eyes roll so hard the sockets hurt and she stomps over to where her step brother is still clinging to life, just barely, eyes bulging, two fingers flexing and unflexing, minutely, froth at his lips. It’s pathetic. Lifting one heavy, punishing work boot, she slams it down onto his neck, a wet _snap_ resulting. The gurgling stops. Avdotia wipes her shoe on the beige carpeting and walks through front door, locking it behind her.

\--

Thailand is perfect. Sweat pours off her in rivulets, down her back, soaking her t-shirt.

Every part of her skin is warm, even the inside of her mouth burns. The entire country is hot, right down to the food.

The lodgings she found upon arrival were more than sufficient. On her first night in the city, she splurged and stayed in The Siam, with all of its five stars, trying to determine if luxury suited her. It was nice, but the bed was too soft and everything was so _pristine_. She’d felt dirty in comparison, despite the long bath she’d soaked in. She didn’t want to stay in a shit hole, but the virtual palace didn’t suit her either.

So it was hostels. Nice hostels, clean, but still hostels. She found one with security and sanitary bathrooms for only a few hundred baht a night. Functional, not beautiful — utilitarian. How she sees herself.

Twelve nights in Bangkok and she hasn’t made a single contact. The Congo hadn’t been feasible, unfortunately. Couldn’t get a ticket there, so here she is in Bangkok, no leads on work. Wandering through dangerous neighborhoods after dark and looking for criminal activity is getting her no where. Probably a stupid idea, but what else? She wonders if she’s being too cautious, not walking down streets that are ominous enough. Tonight she decides to play lost tourist in the worst neighborhood she can find. She’ll bait a pickpocket, break his bones one by one until he takes her to his boss.

“Excuse me, sir?” She reaches out with one hand to passers by, the other holding crinkled map of the city, speaking English in a non-descript American accent. That was something The Siam had been good for. She’d spent the night sitting on the floor in front of the big television, flipping through international channels and practicing accents until she could flawlessly duplicate every American dialect she could find.

People flow around her, like she’s a stone in a river bed, either not able to speak English or not interested in wasting ten minutes to help a lost tourist. Then she sees him. Her mark. He’s leaning against the corner of a building about 100 yards away, arms crossed, his mouth working, chewing, although clearly not eating anything. She can see a grotesque tattoo on the elbow of his right arm she knows links him to the Chao Pho mafia, one of the biggest crime syndicates in the Pacific.

 _He’s_ looking at _her_ like she’s the perfect mark. Brilliant.

He starts toward her, smiling obscenely, missing at least three teeth, and she can only imagine how his breath will reek. He’s not Thai, but she can’t quite place him through the deep tan and the layer of grime over his skin. A strong, sharp jaw and deep set eyes lend a menacing air and even though he’s not a tall man, compared to Avdotia, he’s enormous. Two heads taller with a pencil thin neck and spindly limbs, hair just a shade too long. Thin, greasy. Slicked back. He’s drinking beer out of a can and unabashedly _leering_ as he moves toward Avdotia. She looks him straight in the eye, oozing upperclass naivete, smiling sweetly.

“Oh, thank god, someone friendly!” He actually laughs at that, which is when she knows she’ll be able to take care of him, no problem. _What an idiot._

“Could you possibly help me? I’m trying to find the city center.” She points to the map. “But I can’t make out any of the street names.” A shrug, convincing helplessness.

He coughs, a great, hacking thing, and it takes everything in her not to sneer in disgust.

“You traveling alone, miss?” Huh. An Irish accent, interesting. She’s apparently met the stupidest former member of the Irish Mafia in history. She wants to laugh in his face, but it wouldn’t do. She needs him to pickpocket or mug her and then run so she can follow him and find out where he lives, what he does, who he reports to. She smiles bigger, proud, squares her shoulders.

“Yes, sir! I told my parents 21 is old enough to take a summer trip alone, thank you very much. Of course, _they_ think I’m in Paris!” She laughs heartily, touching his upper arm, inviting him in on the joke. His answering laugh would chill her bones were it not for the bowie knife strapped to her ankle.

He takes the map, pretends, unconvincingly, to look it over. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t I just walk with you to the city center and that way you won’t get lost again.”

“Gosh, that would be great! Are you sure you have the time?”

He smiles, hugely, putrid breath puffing out over rotten teeth. “All the time in the world.”

As an aspiring professional criminal, Avdotia is sincerely embarrassed. How obviously predatory can you be? She’s certain that even if she were really the character she’s playing — this witless, trusting college student — she’d notice the glaring red flag. As it is, she simply nods, smiles cluelessly, and follows, to her supposed doom. Walking close behind him, she inspects the tattoo on his arm.

It’s enormous, covering a third of his arm. A full sun, blazing red and orange, with beams like razor blades protruding around the diameter, poison-green cobra wending around the sphere and between the blades. It’s open mouth holding letters in a Chinese dialect. She can’t remember what they mean. Committing it to memory, follows the man silently, until she realizes the character she’s playing would probably never shut up, not even when an obvious predator is leading her farther and farther from the city center. She draws up beside him, walks bouncily.

“So what’s your name?”

“Uh … call me Pat.”

“Okay. Pat! Are you from Thailand, Pat?”

“Pat” looks decidedly uncomfortable. A cat not used to playing with its mouse before dinner. It makes no sense to Avdotia. Isn’t playing with your prey most of the fun? She smiles to herself, because that’s what she’s doing right now.

“No, I’m not Thai.”

“Oh, but your skin is so dark!” She touches his arm, and he jumps.

“It’s called a tan … what’s your name, anyway?”

“Allison.” She holds out her hand for a shake, squawks, “Nice to meet you!” and guffaws like an idiot. Pat’s eyes widen, alarmed at her stupidity. Avdotia’s smile widens at that.

Pleased as she is, this is taking too long. The rest of the crowd has thinned with only the occasional passer by. Another block or two, the streets lights will be gone — so will any witnesses. Yet he only prods along next to her, slowly, looking left and right. Skittish, nervous. Avdotia breaks away and walks a few steps ahead, her wallet and fake passport jutting out of her back pocket, willing him to grab them and run. He doesn’t.   
She prattles on stupidly about the time she’s spent in Bangkok so far, what she’s seen, what she hasn’t, what she wants to. The city gets darker and darker around them and, still, he does nothing. She wonders for a moment if her instincts were completely wrong, if this man is just an idiot, doesn’t know where the city center is, but then she remembers the tattoo. She’s right about him, but how to trigger him to action? She’s getting bored. Up ahead there’s a darkened alleyway and she turns into it. He follows. Good.

“Oops, looks like we took a wrong turn! This street is a dead end.” Avdotia spins around, arms up in a shrug, and there’s Pat. The fear and nervousness gone from his ratty features He looks like a criminal again. He looks like a nightmare. He’s smiling, devilishly, advancing on her and with a quick glance, she notices his dick obscenely tenting his thin pants. Ah, Avdotia thinks, smiles inwardly. Taking a rapist apart piece by piece will be so much more satisfying. Mentally she adjusts her strategy. She lets “Allison’s” smile falter

“P-pat? Did … we took a wrong … turn, right?” She retreats until her back hits brick, places her hands flat on the wall behind her, watching his footing, planning her move.

“You certainly did, little girl.” Pat licks his lips and starts undoing his belt buckle. “Get on your knees and maybe I won’t have to use my switchblade on you.”

Again, she wants to laugh — this man doesn’t have a weapon anywhere on his person, of that she’s sure — but she carefully arranges her face into horror, fear, and tears begin to flow as she slides down the wall to a crouch.

“But I thought you were going to help me!” She sobs, mentally gives herself points for great acting.

Pat snickers, “You’re even stupider than I thought you were. Now, open up, sweet thing.”

She lets him think he’s won, lets him get within arms reach, waits until she can feel the sticky heat radiating from his body, until she can smell his sour skin.

Then Avdotia moves like lightning.

Pat has a bowie knife buried in his gut up to the hilt before he even feels the pain. Avdotia twists, yanks it free and the man finally screams, falling to his knees. He writhes on the ground and Avdotia circles him, wiping the blood from her knife.

“So ... thanks for bringing me to an area of town where no one is fussed about screams. Really convenient.”

“Fucking bitch,” Pat bites out. She pulls a length of rope from her other boot and tuts.

“No need for ugly name-calling. The way I’ve stabbed you will produce a very controlled exsanguination so as long as you cooperate I’ll think about getting you to some sort of medic. You might even live.”

“You — AH! FUCK — you piece of shit. I’ll fuckin’ destroy you.”

She squats, wrists crossed over her knees, narrows her eyes at this disgusting creature.

“You tried that already and you failed. So now you’re going to tell me what I want to know, or you’re going to end up with even more mistakes to add to your, I’m sure, long and hearty list of regrets. Who do you work for?”

Pat is rolling around the dirty alley, attempting to right himself like an overturned turtle, one had pressed against his abdomen, futilely attempting to staunch the bleeding. Avdotia finds it pathetic, distasteful, wrinkles her nose. What a sorry excuse for a human and a criminal. One should accept defeat or lie in wait and plan. Don’t flounder and flop like waterless fish. She walks over to where he’s managed to shift onto his knees, the hand not cupping the gaping wound in his stomach holding him aloft, and stomps her heavy boot over his spindly fingers. Bones crunch and he shouts, groans, falls on his front.

“Try to get up again and I’ll slice straight through both of your ACLs. Tell me who you work for. Who do you report to and where are they located?”

Pat rolls to his back, mangled hand held to his chest, grimacing. “Yeah right. They’ll kill me if I talk.”

Avdotia leans in close, knife against his throat, breaking skin, letting a small rivulet of blood cascade over his grimy throat, whispering. “And if you don’t, what I will do will be much, much worse.”

She pushes harder with the flat edge of the blade, so that Pat’s air is restricted just enough to alarm him. His eyes go wide and she waits, he wheezes, trying to get a full breath.

“Fuck you, you fucking cunt.” And then Pat is spitting. Hard and phlegmy and fast, he hocks a loogie straight at Avdotia’s face and it lands square on her left cheek. Pat is smiling, smugly, through wheezy gasps, self-satisfied. Even now he seems to think he has some kind of upperhand, some advantage against her and, really, she’s not even angry. In fact, she smiles straight back into his disgusting face, and his own grin falters. Knife still to his throat, she wipes the sizeable glob of phlegm from her cheek and shoves it into Pat’s mouth. He sputters and spits and the knife presses harder and he settles.

“Oh, _Pat_ ,” Avdotia purrs. “That was very much the wrong decision.”

 --

 Skinning a human isn’t entirely different to skinning a small animal. Well, at least not small portions of a human. Like an elbow, for instance.

After Pat did indeed attempt to run again, Avdotia dug her knife through the muscles just above his heels and then hog tied him, deftly, not so much fuss as a pig would make, but definitely more squealing. Currently she’s nearly finished excising his left elbow and the surrounding area of its skin. At the first cut, Pat immediately began to sing like a canary and now Avdotia has several of the Chao Pho’s top members’ home addresses, as well as their places of business and the passcodes to each safe to which they’d been stupid enough to grant Pat access. He’s running out of information to sob out, which is actually a blessing. He’s crying so loudly, it’s obnoxious.

“Please, I’ll tell you anything you want, please!!”

“You already have, Pat.” Avdotia sticks out her tongue, maneuvering a particularly difficult cut. Pat sobs.

“Then what, what is it you’re — ahhh! — what do you want?!”

At last she peels skin free and Pat wails and screams and cries. She holds it up to his face, just before he passes out.

“Your tattoo.”

 --

 Bringing the skinned tattoo of a member of their mafia proves a decidedly more convenient and efficient way in to see one of the mafia bosses compared to her original plan of killing anyone who attempted to detain her. It had been possible, plausible, even easy, as plans go. But this is less messy. Always appreciated.

Once she’s finally alone in a room with someone of import, she slaps the skin down on his desk and asks if they have any openings. He actually laughs and asks her name. She thinks it would be foolish to give her real name and quickly considers her initials.

“You can call me Agra.”

 --

 The first time she kills for money is extremely satisfying. She would have done it for free.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Avdotia = AHV-dotch-yah
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed meeting the assassin later known as Mary Morstan. I literally survive on comments alone instead of food and water, so please, feed me. I lurk around teapotsubtext.tumblr.com.


	3. can you fill it? can you fill it?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sherlock acting like the shambles of his life was just another puzzle to solve. Unbearable. He loved him more than living. But loving him through this nightmare was like embracing a rose bush. Hell, always had been. Constantly poked and prodded, sometimes ripped open and bleeding. If only they could get past it all, extricate the thorns, find out who they are outside of all this. He supposes they know — how it was, before. Could they get back there? Could they?"

As a child, John’s Christmases were always cold and quiet. And reeking of gin.

It’s not as if their parents had been neglectful. There was always food and power and regularly scheduled dental appointments. But there was also always gin. Even at Christmas. Especially at Christmas.

One year he’d picked up his mother’s Christmas cocoa and had the coughing fit of his life as it had clearly not been mixed with water. She’d laughed, returned him to his own glass, powder still floating atop. Harry held his hand as he fought tears from the sting in his closed throat.  

John absolutely detests gin.

They had a fireplace but never used it. His father always said the flu was broken but John suspects it had more to do with saving money on firewood to spend on booze. Warmth. There was never any warmth in that house.

At 221b, he sits in front of a roaring fire, tumbler of scotch in hand. It’s dreadfully quiet but at least not cold. Sherlock plucks idly at his violin, lost in his own mind. John wonders, again, if he can do this, if he can convince a super spy, an assassin, a former CIA operative and master of manipulation that he doesn’t suspect a thing.

They’d read the flash drive immediately following John’s return, of course.

Naked.

In bed.

John hadn’t the stomach for it without Sherlock, held tight to it while Sherlock was in hospital but never looked. Couldn’t look. Even after Sherlock was better, when John wasn’t certain he could come back, he’d sit and only hold it tight in his fist, wondering, waiting for courage. It didn’t come until John found himself back inside Sherlock.

The night John returned Sherlock had asked after it before John had even softened and slid out of him.

“Jesus, Sherlock.” John was still panting.

“It’s the key to everything, John.”

“I’m aware.” Even so, he didn’t want it. He wanted to chuck in the the Thames and forget her and be done.

Once they were tidied and tucked under the white sheets, there was nothing left but to just do it. Even so, John grasped Sherlock’s wrist, tight as he could, stopping him. _Afraid_ , the word lives on the tip of his tongue and he wanted to say it to Sherlock then, to admit that fear itself coursed inside him and had sat there since the night in the empty house — maybe since the day Sherlock died. But he couldn’t make his mouth move. Sherlock had covered John’s hand with his own, held his gaze and simply said his name. Steady. Even. It had been enough.

Of course all the fear had been for naught when they found the drive blank.

John still hasn’t replaced the computer he’d smashed that night.

“She’s manipulating you,” Sherlock had started in, to John’s heaving back, his fists curled tight.

“Shut. Up.”

“John, please, you have to realize —”

“Sherlock, shut up. Right now. Or I will throw _you_ against the wall.”

The silence lasted 30 seconds. And then, all in a rush:

“Mary gave you an empty flash drive because she thought she could stop you reading it. She tells you that you won’t love her after you read it and assumes that will stop you, so she doesn’t bother to put a thing on there, because it’s a ploy, it’s all a ploy. She really thinks she’s got you. That’s why it’s blank. Don’t you see, John? She’ll have to believe you when you play dumb because she thinks she’s already got you! This is brilliant. Wonderful! We have the upper hand!”

It sounded the same as “Ah, it’s Christmas!” Sherlock’s cheeks were flushed, eyes bright. He may well have jumped up and down.

“I’m so glad you find all this horrible stuff ‘brilliant’ but I’m still having just a bit of trouble jumping for joy.”

John pulled on his clothes with shaking hands in front of a finally silent Sherlock and left without another word. Walked around central London until the intermittent tremors subsided. He’d thought he’d get some answers. That something, anything would make a bit of sense after they read the flash drive. But no. Still nothing. Just another glaring reminder of how stupid he is. An idiot to marry her and an idiot to continue believing maybe there was _something_ , something there, other than a ploy, a plan, a manipulation. Sherlock had been right. He deserved this.

And Sherlock acting like the shambles of his life was just another puzzle to solve. Unbearable. He loved him more than living. But loving him through this nightmare was like embracing a rose bush. Hell, always had been. Constantly poked and prodded, sometimes ripped open and bleeding. If only they could get past it all, extricate the thorns, find out who _they_ are outside of all _this_. He supposed they know — how it was, back before. Could they get back there? Could they?

John scolded himself, told himself to go home and have this conversation out loud, with Sherlock. John’s phone had pinged every fifteen minutes with variations of “I’m sorry” from him. Perhaps they should finally hash things out. But it’s never the right time. Never.

On returning, John had found him in only a dressing gown, hair wild, pacing the flat, berating himself out loud for how he’d acted. When he saw John his eyes went wide and he’d rushed forward to fall at his his knees, tears leaking down his cheeks, whispering I _didn’t think you’d come back_. John hadn’t even thought, it hadn’t even occurred. John held him on the living room floor and rocked him, wiping tears, apologizing.

John closes his eyes now, remembering. What a mess they are. And continue to be. They can’t seem to stop hurting each other. Daily almost. There are too many open, gaping wounds festering under every inch of their skin that they don’t discuss, won’t discuss. Not yet. Right now their relationship is only about maintaining. They’re holding on to each other as tight as they can through this horror and John _hates_ it. He wants to get at their pain, cut it away, excise it. He wants to start fresh. But no. They have to wait. Right now John doesn't want to wait any more to feel happy.

Downing his scotch he stands from his chair and goes to kneel in front of Sherlock, nuzzling into the white fabric of his perfectly starched button down, clenching his teeth against all the important things fighting to be said. Laying aside the violin, Sherlock cards long fingers through short hair, cold against John’s scalp, humming softly, tunelessly.

“Your fingers are freezing, Sherlock.”

He shrugs and John takes his left wrist in hand, slipping the first three fingers inside his mouth, sucking. The moan starts low in Sherlock’s chest and rises up his throat, puffing out over his lips.

“John.”

John hums in answer, sliding his tongue in between Sherlock’s digits, eliciting another moan.

“Ah, John, please, we need to, uhhhh, we need to talk about tomorrow.”

Internally, John rolls his eyes. Sherlock barely spoke a word today. Of course he waits until now, this moment, with his fingers in John’s mouth.

He’s right, John knows, which is possibly the most infuriating thing about Sherlock, his incessant correctness. John takes Sherlock’s pinky in his mouth as well and pushes all four fingers in and out rhythmically, staring up through his lashes at Sherlock’s flushed face, until Sherlock is jerking his hips in little aborted thrusts and whining.

“Please, I … you know I can’t—”

John takes pity and pulls off Sherlock’s hand, knowing the end of that sentence is stop. There are not many ways to best Sherlock Holmes, but John is discovering one of them at which he he is exceptionally good. If he wanted, John could prevent this conversation entirely, could prevent meals and bathroom breaks, prevent Sherlock ever seeing another client, opening another case — using only his mouth. John smirks to himself as he watches, from his knees, Sherlock regulate his breathing, gain control.

“Well?”

“Enough of your gloating, John,” Sherlock is fanning himself with his hands. John chuckles. “You’re an insufferable sexual know-it-all.”

John sits down back on his chair with a flop, springs squeaking.

“And you love it.”

Sherlock flushes, remains silent and awkwardness eeks into their rapport. They've yet to rekindle such levity and instead of light it feels heavy. Weighs them down. 

“So,” Clears his throat. “About tomorrow?”

Sherlock stands, ties his dressing gown around his waist.

“I think we should go over your speech a few more times.”

John groans, lights a cigarette.

“Sherlock, I’ve recited the bloody thing to you at least 50 times.”

“And do you feel prepared?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It absolutely does matter now, John. Please don’t trivialize this, it’s extremely important.”

John puffs on his cigarette dejectedly. Absolutely no faith in his ability to pull this off.

“What I mean is … it doesn’t matter if I have it memorized. I’m rubbish.” He puts out the cigarette and suddenly Sherlock, in a flash, is bending over him, grasping his shoulders tightly.

“John, please, understand, to me you are the most incredible and most important and I believe with the utmost certainty that you can do this.”

Their faces are only separated by an inch, breathing air from each others mouths. Everything smells like smoke and Sherlock. John’s heart is hammering. How can it sometimes still feel like the first time they’ve touched, how can Sherlock continue to astound him exactly when John thinks he’s got him figured out? It’s impossible. But not impossible like seeing Mary and keeping his mouth shut, or impossible like trying to speak his feelings out loud. Impossible like the endlessness of the desert, like counting the stars above Afghanistan during night watch, like managing to recover from a shotgun wound when he would have rather died. If Sherlock thinks he can do this … doesn’t that mean he can?

John kisses him, softly, lips closed, one absurdly high cheekbone.

“Alright. It’s your plan. If you say it will work … it will.”

Sherlock flushes again.

“Shall we go over my speech then?” John skims the tip of his nose up and down the side of Sherlock’s, his eyes fluttering shut.

“No, erm. I think, well, I suppose you’re right about, the, hmmm, number of times we’ve already …”

The sentence dies inside John’s mouth, on the flat of his tongue against Sherlock’s teeth.

\--

Having John inside of him ceases the existence of the entire world, Sherlock is certain.

It’s still dead quiet in the flat, but for the gentle crackling of the dying fire and the slick sound of flesh sliding against flesh. They hadn’t even made it to the bedroom. Rarely do. John’s pants are bunched around his knees, buckle tinkling against itself occasionally as Sherlock raises and lowers himself on John’s cock. Sherlock’s face feels aflame.

There is something so salacious about being completely naked, straddling John’s hips, sinking repeatedly, agonizingly slowly into him, while John is still almost completely clothed. It is not lost on Sherlock in this moment that the last time they fucked in this chair was the first time or that tomorrow they have to face the same obstacle attempting to keep them apart. He tries not to think of these moments as bookends, he tries not to acknowledge that this feels like it could be a goodbye.

Sherlock’s fingers dig into the arms of John’s chair and sense memory brings him back to that first time, that drunken, fumbling stag night fuck, and simply the thought of John’s hands on his body where they had never before been sets him on the edge, crying out, stilling.

“Oh no you don’t.” John growls, yanking Sherlock down by the neck to kiss him, sloppy and deep, tongues and teeth, grinding into Sherlock with enough force that the breath is forced from his lungs. Huffing against John’s open mouth, he begs for reprieve, for respite. John only chuckles darkly, slows slightly. It’s a miniscule difference, but somehow John knows, somehow, the precise incremental amount to back off so that Sherlock is balancing on the exact razor’s edge of orgasm, riding that moment just before as if it could last forever. Sherlock’s breathing is approaching hyperventilation, he knows, and his entire torso is glistening with a thin layer of sweat and he cannot register anything but what John is doing to his body.

His mind always slows when John fucks him, decelerates tearing itself to shreds, but never has the act completely stopped it, completely blocked out every iota of worry and deduction and self-loathing, but _now_. Just now. Sherlock couldn’t even remember his full name in this moment were it a matter of life and death and it feels so light, so free, to have nothing pulsing inside of him but _John_.

John’s mouth at his ear.

“It’s just you and me, Sherlock. You and me.”

He begs himself to believe it. 

Just as Sherlock is about to beg for release, John twists inside him, biting his earlobe and he comes with a galaxy behind his eyes, a super nova collapsing in his mind, and John’s hand over his mouth to stifle his screams. He bites down when he feels John’s cock jerking inside him and filling him to overflowing, the wet, slick warmth leaking out and sticking to his arse and John’s thighs as Sherlock collapses against John’s chest, face buried in that familiar oatmeal cable knit.

They climb into bed, wrecked and barely wiped clean and for the first time in years, Sherlock wants to sleep. It’s glorious. He buries his face in the pillow.

“Sherlock?”

“Mmmf?”

“Well. I’m wondering.”

“About?”

“You have this plan to deal with Mary.”

“Mmhmm?”

“What about Magnussen? Isn’t he just as dangerous to us at this point?”

Sherlock was afraid of this. He can’t, he won’t risk telling everything to John at this point. He would never approve. Never. But he must, must maneuver Magnussen out of the way. Placate Mary, eliminate Magnussen, and only then can they truly deal with Mary. Perhaps with Mycroft’s help, unfortunately. Nevertheless, he has to keep John in the dark, just once more, or else it will never work. A part of Sherlock’s brain, some locked door on a room in his mind palace jiggles, protests against the secrecy. Sherlock suspects the room is full of all the times he’s previously kept John in the dark and the … consequences. Keep the door locked. He can do it this time. He’s sorted it. He will take care of them, will save them. No need to worry John unnecessarily.

“Mary and Magnussen present two very complex problems to us. Connected, yes, but to be dealt with entirely separately. Otherwise things will become much too convoluted, too difficult to manage.”

“So we deal with just Mary tomorrow.”

Sherlock hides his face, feeling his mask slip.

“Yes. Tomorrow we deal with just Mary.”

Silence.

“Alright.”

John settles down into his the bed, tosses an arm over Sherlock and buries his face just beneath Sherlock’s scapula. He feels his stomach clench. Wrong floats in front of his face in a hundred different typefaces, pulsating. He shakes his head and they fall like dominoes.

This plan will work. It has to.

 

 


	4. we pick ourselves undone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m going to kill you one day," Avdotia says, flatly.
> 
> Jim lowers his hand, smiling broader still. This is his favorite kind of game. 
> 
> “How about today?”

TEN YEARS EARLIER

You can’t see any of the stars in Los Angeles. It’s the middle of the night, 1 a.m., yet the tungsten bulbs glow brightly all over the city and black out any semblance of a world beyond the smog filled streets. 

Jim loves it. 

Fuck the universe, fuck the solar system, fuck anywhere he can’t conceivably control, exploit, own. He has no time and no stomach for stargazing.

The network is coming along nicely. The willingness to murder anyone who doesn’t do what you ask makes for quick empire building. He’s nearly wrapped L.A. Sewing up all the gangs and mobsters into his pockets was almost boring it was so easy. He was ready to go and so much the better because Avdotia positively hates it here — nearly as much as she hates Jim. 

It suits him to be hated so much, so vehemently. The line between love and hate is fine and grey in his opinion. As long as someone is utterly consumed with feeling for him, as long as they have to rearrange their entire life to make room for the space he takes up in their mind, _fuck_ or _kill_ doesn’tmake a difference. They are intertwined. 

 

\--

 

Feet dangle from the top of the steel skeleton of a fledgling skyscraper. She’s sitting on a metal beam jutting out over downtown L.A., spitting sunflower seeds into the void. That’s the best thing about America so far. Or the only good thing, really. The 24/7 availability of horrifying junk food — if you can call it food. Well, that and the ease of access to firearms. 

Her mouth is salty from the sunflower shells and she likes the way it burns against her split lip, rolling the seeds between her teeth, cracking them open with only her tongue. It makes her feel thirsty. Jim hates it, the sucking and the spitting: so much the better. 

The makeshift construction elevator starts whirring, chunking, the pulley wheel turning. She spits out a shell and cocks her go-to hand gun pointing at the door while popping more seeds in her mouth. The doors slide open and Jim’s hateful face comes into view. _Oh,_ she thinks dejectedly, _just the most dangerous man on the planet. Nothing to worry about._ She was hoping she’d get to shoot someone. Well. Maybe she still would. 

She doesn’t lower the pistol. She likes the way it makes his cheshire grin falter in irritation. He steps from the elevator and stops at the sight of it, straightening his perfectly straight tie. 

“Avdotia, darling, please.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

She spits a sunflower seed shell and uncocks the gun, stowing it and rolling her eyes while Jim advances, balancing on the metal beam perfectly, like a gymnast. 

“How did you find me?”

“Do you honestly not know about the GPS tracking chip I had implanted in your neck two weeks ago? I’m disappointed.”

Avdotia scratches at the bandage under her hair at the nape of her neck. 

“I dug it out with a bowie knife as soon as that shitty roofie you slipped me wore off.”

Jim smiles like a skull and bends over, touching the tip of his finger to Avdotia’s nose. Her stomach roils, greasy and sick. 

“Well played, little Avi, but _perhaps_ that wasn’t the only they put in.” He turns singsong at the end of the sentence and she very nearly pushes him off the edge. God, that would be satisfying, to watch him spin and flail, end over end as he tumbled the hundreds of feet down. She wondered if she’d hear the crunch from way up here, when he hit. She wondered if he’d slam into the other extended beams as he fell, if the hollow metal clang would reverberate through the spot on which she sat. 

Of course, _of course_ he’d planted two. Avdotia rolled her eyes again, this time at herself. _Stupid_. She’d fucked up again. She was getting sloppy, complacent. Too used to having him around. She preferred so much to be alone, but when her contact at the CIA cut her off and the wet jobs had dried up, so had the cash — and then came James Moriarty.

“I know who you are,” he’d said, her knife to his throat in the dark at the filthy youth hostel she’d hunkered down in. Twelve euros a night. It was disgusting, but she’d been able to stretch the money much farther. He’d tapped her on the shoulder, in her sleep, the foppish moron, and her knife was underlining his jugular before her eyes opened.

“I know who you are, Avdotia,” he’d whispered. “And I know what you can do.” She’d pressed the knife harder, felt blood from a flesh wound start to drip slowly.

“Then I should probably slit your throat right now.”

Jim had laughed, like a bell, at that. 

“ _Delightful_ , really. How would you like to work for me, Avi?”

James Moriarty had been fractions of a second from dying then, as he was every time he used that insipid nickname. _Avi_ was cute, it was common, it was what her mother had called her. _Avi_ was unacceptable. But he spoke again, quickly, and had managed to save himself. 

“There will be lots of money and guns and explosives, my dear. And, of course, _lots_ of people to kill.”

He’d smiled then, like there wasn’t a knife to his throat, like his blood wasn’t beading and dripping onto the blade, impossibly white teeth almost glowing in the dark. She’d hated him immediately and fiercely, but the stench of filthy, backpacking bodies stacked on bunks all around her had made the decision simple. 

“When do I start?”

“As soon as you put down the knife.”

“You name?”

“James Moriarty.” He said it like he was announcing a prince, a king. 

“Okay, _Jimmy_. I’m all yours. For now. But remember this,” she’d pressed the knife just a little harder, just enough that the blood flowed more freely. “As soon as it becomes more advantageous to me that you be dead rather than alive, I _will_ kill you.” She felt this way about anyone, really, but it sounded like a particularly good threat with her knife digging into his skin. He’d laughed again, loud and full, nearly waking the room, as she’d lowered the knife. 

“Delightful, _truly_.”

Sitting there on the metal beam, soaring a thousand feet above greater Los Angeles, she weighs her options. It’s something she does often, at least once a day, and when he does things like call her _Avi_ , and certainly every single time he dares to touch her. Hand on her arm, brushing her hair aside — her skin crawls and reflexes nearly win out. 

“I’m going to kill you one day.” 

He lowers his hand, smiling broader still. This is his favorite kind of game. 

“How about today?” Sickly gleeful, he claps his hands and rubs them together. “We could both jump! Or you could shoot me, and then shoot yourself. Although you’d have to promise.” He wags a finger. “No cheating in a murder/suicide pact! Whaddya think, how does dying sound today?”

Honestly Avdotia feels dead already. Always has. There is nothing inside her but the need to feel the cool metal of a trigger warming under her finger, to feel gun oil rubbing over her hands and the scuff of blades sharpening against stones and scraping against bones. To her, the line between living and dead is fine and grey.

She looks Jim up and down. _Murder/suicide._ She’d get to kill him. Hmm …

“It sounds … appealing.”

“Well, alright then!” Jim settles down next to her on the beam, precariously, and pulls out a pound coin. 

“Heads or tails, my dear?”

Avdotia stares at him, pointedly. Jim insists on flipping that stupid coin for nearly everything. _Los Angeles or Johannesburg, maim or kill, shoot him in the head or in the heart,_ etc., etc. He knows her answer but he still asks every time. She almost kills him just for that, just because she’s annoyed. 

“Yes, yes, I _know_. You’re _always_ heads. Dull, dull, so very dull. Okay. Heads we live, tails we die.” He counts down from three in Gaelic and flips the coin in the air, holding out a flat palm to catch it. Avdotia snatches it from the air and slaps it onto the back of her right hand. 

_Tails._

Jim sighs. “Wrong day to die.”

She’s not relieved. Not disappointed. She’s nothing. She’s always been nothing. 

 

\--

 

It becomes a tradition: Coin Toss Russian Roulette. Every time Avdotia threatens to kill Jim, he brings out the pound coin. The same one, of course, queen on the obverse, Celtic cross on the reverse. 

Sometimes she shoots him in the arm or the leg before he can toss it, tells him to fuck off. His smugness is endlessly irritating. If he wants to be shot so badly, she’s happy to oblige. They’re only flesh wounds but they ease the itch in her trigger finger nicely. Of course, it means she has to sew him up as well and she hates _fixing_ him. She wants to watch him bleed, see him hurt. Their perpetual dearth of morphine makes helps.

“ _Ciach ort_ , that hurts! Who in their right mind certified you as a nurse?!”

“Stop swearing in Gaelic, I hate it when you do that. Disgusting, guttural language.” 

They’re sitting in the kitchen at their current safehouse, a 100-year-old abandoned bungalow with whitewashed walls in freezing Detroit. 

Avdotia tightens the suture and Jim shouts again.

“ _D'anam don diabhal!”_

“He’s already got it, Jimmy.” She smiles, stabbing the needle through his skin and watching him grit his teeth. “Nurse training was going spare when I was teenager. People were dying left and right, they couldn’t even keep the high school open. It was something to do. They paid me.”

“Plus you got to watch the people dying left and right, a definitive plus.”

“I was paid to save people there, Jim, not kill them. I honor my contracts.”

“Yes, but that doesn't mean you didn’t watch the light blink out of the eyes of the ones you couldn’t save with that look on your face, that dark delight. I’ve seen it. When the blood gurgles out of their mouth from the wound in their gut, you _smile_.”

Avdotia doesn’t answer. She finishes stitching Jim’s open flesh together, deftly, making sure it hurts as much as possible, then applies gauze and tape. Jim stands, dressing himself in an unsoiled, unshot shirt and suit jacket, just as ridiculously expensive as the one she’d put a hole through, eyeing her warily. 

“I don’t smile because they’re dying. I smile because _I_ pulled the trigger.”

They stare at each other over the bare kitchen table, surface scratched and marred, lacquer chipped, and Jim smiles, but it’s not his usual. It looks more dangerous. His hands smooth over his jacket, where she knows a gun is strapped under his arm. It feels like a game of chicken, suddenly, and Avdotia has to tell her hand not to twitch to her gun because it’s on the blue and white tiled kitchen counter behind her. Too far. Cold sweat beads lightly on her neck.

He has yet to shoot at her — Jim has only one shot, a kill shot. Shooting games, flesh wounds, that’s not James Moriarty. If he levels a gun, it’s at your head and you’re going to die. Sometimes he looks at her like that, like he’s finally fed up with having a partner, like he’s thinking of shooting her. He’s doing it now. Usually she has her gun, usually she isn’t worried. _Sloppy_. Her hate for him is distracting and it makes her sloppy, it makes her forget how dangerous he is, how changeable. She vows never to put her gun down again if she lives. 

Unexpectedly, Jim’s smile turns radiant, open and friendly and Avdotia breathes in silent relief. 

“Will you marry me?”

“ _What?_ ” She’s sweating again, this time from nausea,

“I think we should get married. It would be _fabulous!_ And, of course, convenient for crime and what not.”

“Jim, you’re gayer than Liberace.”

“And?”

A beat. _He wants to own me_ , Avdotia thinks. Although, it’s true things would be more convenient, less paperwork to fake. They always pretend to be husband and wife when traveling. She hates it. He _holds her hand_ in airports. It’s repulsive. 

“I would rather die.”

Jim fishes out the pound coin and waggles it before tossing it in the air. 

Avdotia holds her breath. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while. I hope to actively return to this story. We'll see. <3

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is teapotsubtext.tumblr.com.


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